Eli Langner

2009 Creekwalker Poetry Prize Finalist

Eli Langner's poetry has been broadcast on radio and has been published in: Sanskrit, The North American Review, descant, Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine, Celebrations, The Angry Poet, Bryant Literary Review, California Quarterly, Concho River Review, Confluence, Crucible, The Distillery, Meridian Anthology Of Contemporary Poetry, Mother Earth Journal, The Old Red Kimono, The Owen Wister Review, PPA Literary Review, Poetry @ The River Annual Review, SLAB, Steam Ticket, Veil: Journal of Darker Musings, Wisconsin Review, and Creations Magazine.

He has also been a featured speaker of the Performance Poets Association.

He lives in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona, with his wife, Marge

---

EDDIE’S AT MIDNIGHT

when you could eat a steak
without worrying a doctor,
there was a shoebox of a
place you would’ve missed
if you didn’t look downstairs

when customers crowded
the tiny tables beneath a
galaxy of twinkling bulbs,
and the bouncer served
your drinks in his fat fists

when Maxie blew his horn,
the bell of his trumpet rang
like a blacksmith’s hammer
that wrought our hard souls
into something beautiful

when Shirl stepped up in her
evening gown, you could feel
testosterone rising (how those
sequins caught the light, they
really knocked your eyes out)

when her lipsticked lips parted
like the Red Sea, she belted one
out that could’ve freed the Jews,
and God help any sons of Egypt
who were too late for her song

when the gig was through, the
only witness was the payphone,
sitting squarely on the back wall,
its dial an eye blackened by the
insult of too many drunk excuses

when Max and the bass player left,
two oily brushstrokes flowing in
the dim cone of a rainy streetlight,
1953 slid around the corner and
vanished down a dark alley


This poem appeared previously in Concho River Review




THE KOI OF NIJO

they glide through mossy water
undulating spindles spun of silk
glinting through the murky veil
swirling daubs of spectral glow:
orange, yellow, white and ruby
clustered as their need requires
separate as their dappled marks

Utsuri is calico coral and coal
Ochiba Shigure is fallen leaves
Shiro Bekko, footprints in snow
Kumonryu wears a black jacket
Tancho, a red spot on his head
Aka Matsuba is copper pinecone
Yamabuki Ogon is woven gold

they cannot see their own beauty
only the kaleidoscope of others
and the errant bugs and blossoms
left drifting on the silvery surface;
they can only swim in lazy circles
fins their only means of motion
round and round the castle moat


This poem appeared previously in descant




NAMASTE

I am the song before
the first note sounds;
I am the moment
just before the kiss

I am the scent of lilac
that arrives
out of nowhere,
then vanishes

I am neither the bee
nor the flower,
but the wing-breeze
that puffs the petals

I am the laugh
inside the teardrop
that pops it like
an iridescent bubble

I am the gold ring of now
through which time slips
like a silk scarf with
corners stretched infinite

I am the bird
perched on the mountaintop;
though winds encompass me
I do not waver

I am the timeless eternal
and so are you,
and so is he, and so is she,
and so forth, forever




THE INNER CHILD

torso unzips
the adult costume
furling to the ground
in waves of melted taffy
revealing the inner child

radiant and dark
adventurous and shy
murderous and kind
Jekyll and Hyde
in a fetal blossom

wants to destroy and
rebuild the world
signing the new creation
by handprint of leftover
peanut butter and jelly


This poem appeared previously in Sanskrit




ALREADY THERE

I navigate Long Island’s roads
but I’m already way out west
beneath the soaring Tucson sky
where lofty clouds in grandeur plume

in Waldbaum’s crowded parking lot
it’s not the strip mall I perceive
but orange mountains looming high
with purple shadows rippling through

the gutter filled with Tuesday’s rain
becomes a shallow desert creek;
the coat rack where I hang my hat
a lone saguaro cactus tree

my wife’s mundane suburban clothes
transform to saucy cowgirl duds;
my desktop is a prairie plain
my office chair, my faithful steed

and when the tired New York sun
below the dull horizon droops
I see the glowing Tucson sky
in multicolored glory bloom


This poem appeared previously in The Distillery




All Poetry © Copyright Eli Langner.  All rights reserved.